Sunday's Selection

A decent day for the blog on Saturday with both C'est Notre Gris and Court Jester just about hanging on for place money. Marey ran a shocker and was pulled up a long way from home. It was a chancy selection and at huge prices they can run like that sometimes. Onwards and upwards for tomorrow!

We are back at Kempton and Leopardstown on Sunday with more high class action in store. Sprinter Sacre will be out to prove he is really back to his best, though I am looking forward to seeing how Duke Of Medina gets on in the opener at Kempton as he was hugely impressive in winning his last start at Market Rasen. This is a big step up in class but any rain that falls will be in his favour and he could run well at a price if it is soft or worse.

However, the most valuable race of the day, and also probably the most competitive, is the Paddy Power chase at Leopardstown where a bumper field of 28 go to post in the hope of capturing the 100k+ first prize. In such a big field there are a number of horses that a case can be made for, but the one I like is the Liam Burke trained My Murphy, who has run some very good races in valuable big field handicaps during the past year and he made a more than encouraging return to action over an inadequate 20f at Navan last time, staying on pleasingly late in the day.

He ran in this race last year, off a mark of 141, and he eventually finished a well beaten 9th. However, he started off his season in the Troytown last year and he had a very tough race over 3m in a bog at Navan. That must have left a mark on this son of Presenting who still ran well for a long way. Hopefully his much gentler return to action this season will allow him to put in a much better finishing effort this time around.

He was unfortunate to bump into Djakadam in the Thyestes at Gowran back in January on his next start and off 139 he was well beaten by the Mullins horse, but he was almost 20l in front of Goonyella in 3rd and Gallant Oscar in 4th, two very useful yardsticks. Burke also runs Sumos Novios, who is a lovely stamp of a horse no doubt, but he has to prove he belongs at this level and I believe that My Murphy has already proved he has a race of this standing in him. Hopefully that day is today and at 20/1 he looks well worthy of an each way interest.

STEVOS' SELECTION:2.55 LEOPARDSTOWN-MY MURPHY E/W 20/1